


Matters of Tea

by shopfront



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Flirting, Post-Episode: s09e12 Hell Bent, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-07-29 16:03:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16267601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/pseuds/shopfront
Summary: When Clara needs someone to talk to, she turns to the smartest person she knows. Other than the Doctor, of course. Not that he’d be much help for matters of the heart, anyway.





	Matters of Tea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lucylikestowrite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucylikestowrite/gifts).



> Thank you to A for the beta!

“It’s just hard, you know. You spend day in and day out with the same person, doing these amazing things. It’s hard not to get close. You become more than family, and it’s so intense that it’s already way beyond dating. The whole universe is constantly spinning around you - both of you - and right at the centre of all of that, it’s just them,” Clara said. She trailed off, absentmindedly tracing the shape of the teacup under her hands as she stared into the distance. The curve of a familiar face drifted across her mind's eye, and she smiled at the memory. She felt the absence keenly when Me left their TARDIS to check in on her hoarded ex-companions, treading far too close to the Doctor in the process for Clara's comfort. “Just them, smiling at you across a console day in and day out.”

Jane coughed delicately beside her, and Clara startled out of her daydream. It wasn't like it was a  _hardship_ to be alone with an excuse to visit old friends, though.

“Sorry,” she said hastily. “I’m here with you and going on about someone else. That’s rude. It’s just a lot, is all, and I don’t really have anyone else to talk to about it. But it’s still very poorly done of me, especially when I specifically decided to pop in to see my-” _girlfriend_ , she thought. Could she even call Jane Austen her girlfriend? Or would that be terribly presumptuous and would the TARDIS even translate the connotations properly for her and, oh- “I’m so sorry, I’ll… I’ll stop.”

“Your Doctor is a lucky gentleman to have won your heart. I ought not to begrudge him that after he saved our lives the first time I met you, and it is not as if I could provide you with a respectable home and marriage myself,” Jane said, with an arched eyebrow and a twist of her lips as she refilled Clara’s cup. She reached over and steadied the cup with her free hand as she poured, and her fingers lingered on the back of Clara’s hand for a long moment before she pulled away

But Clara had only barely registered the touch before Jane's words sunk in. “My what?” she asked, blanching. “Did you say _my_ Doctor? Oh, no, he's not- there’s been a mistake. What year is this again?”

“It’s 1810.”

Clara nodded a few times slowly, lips moving silently in the shape of numbers. “Yeah, I’ve got nothing,” she finally admitted. “Is this before or after- No, wait, just tell me: when was the first time you saw me after the tumble we took together in the rose garden? That’s probably safer. Don’t want to give away any games.”

“It would have been after we encountered those Vinvocci gentlemen pretending to be politicians,” Jane said slowly. “You arrived quite suddenly, not unlike your appearance in the garden this morning, and at a very fortuitous moment. Don’t you remember?”

“The Vin-what now? Right,” Clara said hastily, jumping her feet. “Sorry, got to go, I think I landed wrong. You would assume that if you'd stolen a different ship with a better navigation system that you’d probably get it wrong less often, but no. It doesn’t seem to work that way. Thanks for the tea!” Then she disappeared into her TARDIS, only to pop her head back through the lacy pavilion wall that was part of its camouflage a moment later. “Sorry. Again. But which year and in what place did we meet the Vin-whatever?”

“I do believe it was the summer of 1801, not long after I arrived in Bath,” Jane replied, brow furrowed.

“Right, back in a jiffy!”

*

“Okay,” Clara said, breathless as she stumbled back out of the pavilion a moment later. "As you were, continue on, don't mind me."

“How did- your tea tent, it seemed to move. Like it was here and then gone, and then back again almost instantly,” Jane said. Then she seemed to realise that Clara was only nodding along in a cursory sort of fashion, while busily beating at the handful of embers that smouldered in her skirt. Jane hurried back to the small table Clara had set out for them earlier, and returned quickly with the teapot. “Oh! However did you manage that? Let me,” she said as she upended the pot on Clara, who shrieked.

“Well,” Clara said a moment later, very damp but no longer on fire. “That worked.”

“Better than catching alight,” Jane replied with satisfaction. As Clara watched, her eyes dipped down to linger on how Clara’s soaked dress was already clinging to her. “I see you still eschew a corset, Miss Oswald. How very modern. People make much of how insubstantial fashion is these days, but I suspect you might teach them a thing or two.”

Clara blinked down at her own clothes, which were growing increasingly transparent by the moment as the damp spots spread. Then she looked back up and smirked.

“Blasted things to get on without help. Good thing it’s nothing you haven’t seen before, then,” she said cockily, her smirk growing when Jane’s eyes dipped again for a moment as Clara continued fussing with her clothes.

“Indeed. A great many times. They are some of my fondest memories of Bath and the Vinvocci,” Jane said. She drew nearer to assist Clara in plucking the uncomfortably wet fabric away from her body, though her fingers were quick to linger instead of help.

“Hang on, did you say memories plural?” Clara asked. Her smirk quickly melted into a frown.

“Yes, when the Vinvocci continued to return, so did you,” Jane replied in a matter of fact tone without looking up.

“Return? But I just- Return! Of course they returned!” Clara cried out as she balled her hands into fists. Alarmed, Jane took a step back. But Clara just held up a hand to halt the flow of her own frustration, and sighed. “Never mind, don’t tell me how. I’ll figure it out for myself. Just tell me one thing, did I get the best of them in the end?”

“Yes, you did,” Jane said as she cautiously started to laugh.

“Good,” Clara huffed. “Well at least I have that going for me.”

“It was the time you brought your friend, Lady Me, with you,” Jane continued blithely, not noticing how Clara went still at the name. “I must confess that I am pleased but surprised that you did not bring your Doctor instead, if you are now growing so close.”

“Right, yes, about that,” Clara said. “You’ve got rather the wrong end of the stick. Our conversation earlier today, see, it wasn’t about the Doctor. I don’t- Oh, that’s complicated too, but I don’t see him anymore. We, well I suppose you would say we parted ways.”

“I don’t understand,” Jane said.

“It’s Lady Me who I keep smiling at across consoles like a lovelorn idiot. Not the Doctor, the Lady. I can’t work out if she’s interested, which is the most absurd thing because normally I’d just… I dunno, make a move,” Clara declared, frustrated again and putting her hands on her hips.

Understanding was dawning on Jane’s face. “Ah, you aren’t sure if she returns your affections?” she asked. When Clara nodded emphatically, Jane reached for her hand and drew it gently between her own, clasping it firmly and trailing her thumbs back and forth across Clara’s palm. “Does she ever take you by the hand like this?” 

“N-no,” Clara said, her mouth dropping open slightly.

“Are you quite sure? Or perhaps she would approach you this way, to take your arm while walking,” Jane continued, raising Clara’s hand as she stepped around to Clara’s side so that she could slowly thread her arm through Clara’s elbow. “Like this,” she murmured, pressing herself close. Clara looked down at Jane's simple bodice that felt ever so sheer when pressed so firmly against Clara's upper arm, and quirked an eyebrow.

“She hasn’t, but I remember you doing that to me back in 1801,” Clara replied, her voice throaty.

“Perhaps she’s asked you to take tea and cake with her in the garden, and pulled you down to the ground like this, then?” Jane asked, and tumbled them both onto the grass. They both shrieked with laughter as they fell, and then struggled gently for a moment on the ground as they tried to right themselves. Eventually Clara rolled Jane over with a playful groan, and then continued rolling until she was on her knees above Jane.

“Urgh, these dresses always get caught around my ankles,” Clara grumbled, falling down onto her elbows so her face hovered not far above Jane’s.

“Imagine the inconvenience they might pose if you also wore a corset,” Jane said with a smirk.

“Oh, I bet you’d find it an inconvenience alright,” Clara replied as, with a leer, she leant down to find Jane’s lips with her own.

*

“Before you return to your Lady Me,” Jane said slowly some time later, rising from the grass as Clara did. “Perhaps we might take a small turn down the path together? Or you might invite me to call upon you properly in your… tent? I should return home, but there is a little time left before anyone will miss me.”

Clara raised her eyebrows, and looked over her shoulder at her TARDIS. Which was still, indeed, disguised as a small outdoor tent with the fabric sides unfastened. Ostensibly for privacy, but mostly to conceal the entrance to the ship behind folds of fabric.

“You’d be most welcome,” Clara said. “Only it’s a slightly unconventional tent. Actually, it used to be a diner, but then- Oh that's a long story, look I just don't want you to be too shocked by what you find inside. It can sometimes also take people a little longer to leave than they expect it to. In fact, it might be better if I call on you later- nope, okay.”

“I think you’ll find, Miss Oswald, that I am not so easily shocked,” Jane said as she swept past Clara. She paused at the entrance to the tent, and looked back at Clara expectantly. “Well? Aren’t you going to invite me inside?”

“Right you are,” Clara said as she bounded forward quickly and drew aside the curtain that concealed the door. Pushing it open with only the slightest whisper of the hinges, she stepped back and waved her hand towards it. “After you.”

“Oh my,” Jane said a moment later. Clara chuckled and followed her, pulling the door shut behind them. “This isn’t a tent, at all. Is it bigger on the-”


End file.
